Juvenile Drug Courts and Teen Substance Abuse

Drug courts have been used in adult courts for years, but their use in the juvenile justice system is a new phenomenon. Although the number of juveniles affected by these drug courts remains small, the programs are spreading, and their presence is affecting how practitioners and policymakers view drug abuse among juveniles.

With data compiled through the NIJ-sponsored National Evaluation of Juvenile Drug Courts project, the Urban Institute has published Juvenile Drug Courts and Teen Substance Abuse. Edited by Jeffrey Butts, director of the Urban Institute’s Program on Youth Justice and a senior research associate in the Justice Policy Center, and John Roman, a senior research associate in the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, this is the first book to delve into the ideas behind juvenile drug courts, their history, and their popularity. The editors recruited justice policy experts to assess evidence of the impact and effectiveness of the programs and to help guide the future development of juvenile drug courts.

Chapter topics include: “Drug Courts in the Juvenile Justice System,” “American Drug Policy and the Evolution of Drug Treatment Courts,” “What Juvenile Drug Courts Do and How They Do It,” “Drug Court Effects and the Quality of Existing Evidence,” “Defining the Mission of Juvenile Drug Courts,” “Identifying Adolescent Substance Abuse,” “Shaping the Next Generation of Juvenile Drug Court Evaluations,” and “Building Better Evidence for Policy and Practice.”

Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence

Gun policy is a hot topic in the United States. In an effort to restrict high-risk groups’ access to firearms while preserving the gun rights of low-risk individuals, various initiatives and laws have been enacted. But are these policies working? Are they affecting crime rates?

Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violenceprovides guidance for a pragmatic approach to gun policy using empirical research to help resolve conflicting assertions about the effects of guns, gun control, and law enforcement. Edited by Jens Ludwig, associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University, and Philip J. Cook, the ITT/Terry Sanford Distinguished Professor of Public Policy Studies at Duke University, the book strives to include both sides of the debate—to provide a “skilled and dispassionate analysis” of gun policy issues. Produced in part with NIJ funds, the book contains six chapters that examine the success of Richmond-based Project Exile in reducing homicide rates, whether gun ownership deters burglaries, whether concealed-carry laws reduce crime, the status and number of existing gun control laws, whether policing reduces the number of illegal guns in the community, and the effectiveness of laws restricting the right of domestic batterers to possess a firearm.

Economic Espionage and Industrial Spying

Hedieh Nasheri, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Economic espionage is a relatively new form of white-collar crime. The United States passed the Economic Espionage Act of 1996; however, rapidly changing technologies have raised important implications for future research and the use of criminal sanctions and civil penalties in this dynamic landscape.

Economic Espionage and Industrial Spying, written by Hedieh Nasheri, an associate professor of justice studies at Kent State University and a visiting professor at the University of Turku in Finland, investigates the impact of these technology-related crimes and examines the far-reaching effects of advances in computer and wireless communications. Nasheri analyzes the foundations of economic espionage, trade secret thefts, and industrial spying; shows how these activities affect society; and then looks at the legal efforts used to control them. The book examines more than 40 international espionage cases and explores the legislative initiatives undertaken by the United States to combat the rising tide of economic espionage and trade secret theft.

The book is based on research funded, in part, by a grant from NIJ’s International Center.